Politologija ISSN 1392-1681 eISSN 2424-6034

2023/3, vol. 111, pp. 41–73 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15388/Polit.2023.111.2

Conceptual Issues of National Security Policy-Making Under Uncertainty

Olga Reznikova
National Institute for Strategic Studies, Ukraine
Email: reznikova1010@gmail.com

Volodymyr Smolianiuk
Yevheniy Bereznyak Military Academy, Ukraine
Email: svf-nb@ukr.net

Abstract. The article examines the nature of the uncertainty impact on the formation and implementation of national security policy. The multiplication of uncertainties and complication of the system of social relations prompt a transformation of conceptual approaches to the identification of the national security basic features and the organization of key processes in this area. It has been proven that the development of the concepts of uncertainty and resilience prompts a reconceptualization of the national security. This process is currently taking place. The implementation of new approaches to ensuring national security contributed to the initiation of a paradigm shift in national security policy. Management of uncertainty allows for reducing its influence on national security policy-making. The development of science and increasing the level of public trust in scientific information, which is taken as a basis for shaping political decisions, are of great importance for this.
Keywords: national security, resilience, uncertainty, state policy, paradigm.

Esminiai nacionalinio saugumo politikos įgyvendinimo klausimai neapibrėžtumo sąlygomis

Santrauka. Straipsnyje nagrinėjama neapibrėžtumo įtaka nacionalinio saugumo politikos formavimui ir įgyvendinimui. Neapibrėžtumo veiksnių gausėjimas ir socialinių santykių sistemos sudėtingumas skatina peržiūrėti svarbias prielaidas dėl esminių nacionalinio saugumo nustatymo bruožų ir tai, kaip įgyvendinama ši politika. Teigiama, kad neapibrėžtumo ir atsparumo koncepcijų plėtra skatina nacionalinio saugumo perkonceptualizavimą. Būtent šis procesas šiuo metu yra svarbiausias. Naujų prieigų prie nacionalinio saugumo užtikrinimo plėtojimas prisideda prie paradigminio poslinkio pačioje nacionalinio saugumo politikoje. Neapibrėžtumo valdymas leidžia sumažinti jo svarbą nacionalinio saugumo politikos įgyvendinimui. Šia prasme svarbu pabrėžti mokslinės perspektyvos, kurios pagrindu daromi politiniai sprendimai, ir visuomenės pasitikėjimo šia perspektyva reikšmę.
Reikšminiai žodžiai: nacionalinis saugumas, atsparumas, neapibrėžtumas, valstybės politika, paradigma.

________

Received: 01/12/2023. Accepted: 19/06/2023
Copyright © 2023 Olga Reznikova, Volodymyr Smolianiuk. Published by Vilnius University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction

State policy-making is a complex process involving a wide range of actors who interact in different ways and often have competing interests.1 This process is of dynamic nature and is affected by different influences of both internal and external origins.2 It has been proved that the context of the situation,3 the features of the organization of power in the state,4 social bonds, and political institutions, including international organizations, can influence the formation and implementation of state policy in different ways.5 In particular, such influences can cause changes in the effectiveness of the policy6 and even make one think about revising its paradigm.7 Policy-making involves choosing a decision from a set of alternative options,8 which is usually based on previous experience.9 However, the processes taking place in a modern complex security environment are not always linear.10 State policy formation models, which do not take into account the uncertainty factor (including the human one),11 do not meet new realities.

Since the end of the Second World War, traditional challenges and threats have evolved. Their interconnection and interaction have strengthened.12 New threats, including hybrid ones, have emerged, and their manifestations in different areas are difficult to predict and identify, especially at the initial stage.13 The modern security environment is characterized by high volatility and uncertainty. The dramatic events today test the strength and viability of existing peace and security mechanisms, the effectiveness of international organizations and alliances in practice. In particular, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed the global security environment dramatically in a moment. As it has become clear, there are no adequate international mechanisms to prevent or end the war at an early stage. Ukraine’s steadfastness in the face of aggression was unpredictable to many policy-makers, who were forced to revise their previous goals and plans urgently.

Currently, the global security situation remains uncertain. This raises many pressing questions. How to reduce the impact of uncertainty on policy formation in the field of national security? How to determine the agenda of national security policy in the face of numerous problems and limited resources? Are changes to the social contract in the state necessary?

Setting the agenda in the context of state policy-making implies that, of all possible issues requiring a response from the authorities, only the priorities will be chosen.14 The expanded interpretation of national security15 and the growing influence of uncertainty further complicate this choice. There is also a need to improve methods of setting state policy priorities in the field of national security, in order to increase the level of objectivity and reasonableness of the choice, as well as the consideration of variables.

In the context of the widening range of new threats, growing global interdependence and uncertainty, the provision of security by the national states became extremely difficult and required the search for new scientific approaches. This has contributed to the emergence of the concept of national resilience,16 which, among other things, proposes certain changes to the way national security is managed in order to adapt it to the requirements of the time. This concept recognizes uncertainty, rapid change, risks, threats, and crises as a part of the “new reality” and not as an exception.17 This is the fundamental difference between the national resilience concept and the national security concept. Ensuring the readiness of the state and society to respond to a wide range of threats and dangers becomes a priority.18 There is a growing demand for capacity building in the field of change management.19 The enrichment of the field of national security with ideas of resilience and the influence of the uncertainty concept form a tendency to reconceptualize national security in general.

Currently, significant challenges in the area of shaping national security policy are the ambiguous interpretation of the national resilience concept by policy-makers and implementers, and the lack of awareness of the complex nature of the national security and resilience problems that require attention from the state. It is important to understand which changes in the modern security environment and social relations have the greatest impact on the process of formation and implementation of the national security policy at all stages – from agenda-setting to results assessment,20 and how it changes the nature of the relevant processes. The set of ideas that shape state policy constitutes its paradigm.21 The accumulation of a critical mass of deviations and anomalies that do not fit into the existing paradigm prompts the search for a new paradigm that corresponds to the new reality.22 Changing the paradigm of state policy implies a long-term change in basic beliefs, values, attitudes toward the nature of the problems that require attention from the authorities, and ways to address them.23

The purpose of this article is to reveal the nature of changes that occur in the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of national security under the influence of uncertainty and shifts in the system of social relations.

The implementation of the specified research goal involved solving a number of tasks, namely:

– to establish factors that determine changes in the processes of formation and implementation of national security policy;

– to characterize the main options for approximation of social uncertainty on basic indicators of national security;

– to determine the effects of the concept of national resilience and the concept of uncertainty on the development of the concept of national security;

– to explore the possibilities of reducing the impact of uncertainty on national security policy-making.

Research methodology. The methodological basis for analyzing the nature of the impact of uncertainty and changes in the system of social relations on the formation and implementation of national security policy is based on theoretical discussion. The first part of the article studies the transformation of conceptual approaches and models of state policy shaping in the field of national security. The key factors of influence on relevant processes in the modern security environment have been identified. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of interrelations and mutual influences of national resilience, national security and uncertainty concepts. The second part describes the phenomenon of social uncertainty and the main directions of its influence on the state and public activities to ensure national security and defense. The third part examines the possibilities of reducing the impact of uncertainty on the formation of state policy in the field of national security. This part also presents reflections on whether the studied changes in social relations, including the multiplication of uncertainties, might be considered the beginning of a paradigm shift in national security policy and the reconceptualization of national security.

Concerning the data analysis, after finding and uncovering the patterns and insights from the collected documents and articles, they were examined carefully in terms of the information relevance, as well as categories and key concepts used in them. The research of scientific literature and public sources was based on using analysis, synthesis, as well as system, logical, structural-functional, comparative, abstract logical, and other methods.

1. The influence of the concepts of uncertainty and resilience on national security policy formation in modern conditions.

In modern conditions, the factor of uncertainty is the main trigger of changes in the formation of state policy in the field of national security. There are different definitions of uncertainty. Generally, scientists claim that the existence of uncertainty signals a lack of information or mistrust of current information or the sources of its origin.24

There are several important conclusions from the uncertainty concept for policy-making. First, uncertainty can be harnessed in order to restrain the power that comes with information or constrain it to make it perform better.25 Second, the development of science is important to compensate for the lack of information necessary for decision-making and to reduce the level of public distrust in it. The optimal role of scientific information for decision-makers is to enable and structure decisions, not to determine them.26 Third, there is a risk of politicization of science, which increases mistrust. It has been determined that science is open to uncertainty and interpretation, but politicization – fueled by motivated reasoning and advances in the technological environment – is leading to a new level of science skepticism among citizens and scientists themselves.27 It becomes difficult to evaluate the results of science because they are often used selectively for political agendas.

Existing models of state policy-making address only certain elements of uncertainty, in particular the randomness of the relationships between actors that may influence state policy-making,28 combining rational with irrational.29 In general, the variables used in these models by their authors include the nature of the political regime, the dominant ideology, cultural norms and ideals, unexpected events and the nature of the problems to be addressed, their impact on the political system, ambiguous understanding of the problem by the political actors, inconsistencies among the different political institutions regarding the ways of solving the problem, the appropriateness of putting it on the agenda, etc.

The above aspects, associated with the uncertainty, are directly related to the national resilience concept, which actively influences the political agenda of many states and international organizations. In particular, the relevant goals and objectives are contained in the EU and NATO strategic documents. “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy. Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe”30 defines the main directions and tasks in the sphere of strengthening the resilience of states and their societies both within the EU and throughout Europe. At the same time, particular attention is paid to enhancing social resilience, resilience of critical infrastructure, energy and environmental resilience.

Resilience for the Alliance is the basis for credible deterrence, protection, and effective performance of its statutory tasks. The NATO baseline requirements for national resilience were approved by the Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Warsaw in 2016 and confirmed as part of the “Commitment to enhance resilience,”31 which was developed and strengthened in 2021.32 These baseline requirements of NATO are designed, above all, to ensure the continuity of governance, as well as the resilience of critical infrastructure and the continuity of critical public services. There is an even greater diversity of approaches to the concept of national resilience in the strategic and policy documents of different states and the scientific literature.33

According to the researchers, identifying and explaining the problem in the context of setting the policy agenda, as well as developing solutions, is an uncertain and unpredictable process that does not always lead to clear outcomes. Even if policy-makers accept the existence of the problem, they may not share an understanding of its roots and then offer different solutions that may not be consistent among themselves.34

An even greater challenge to shaping the national security agenda is that some issues (such as hybrid threats) are difficult not only to understand but also to predict their emergence and manifestations. However, this does not mean that such problems can be neglected. On the contrary, the development of a national security policy while taking into account principles of resilience is designed to meet this challenge.35 In particular, the appropriate approach focuses on analyzing the security environment, identifying dangerous trends, and assessing risks. Scientists note that uncertainty can be reduced by improving predictability and investing in science development.36

In addition, a comprehensive approach to national resilience implies whole-of-society, whole-of-government inclusion, the establishment of effective cooperation at all levels, ensuring an appropriate level of preparedness for a wide range of threats, guaranteeing the continuity of the critical functions of the state and society, and rapid coordinated response to threats of any nature and origin, etc. Consequently, a comprehensive approach to national resilience focuses on reducing and managing uncertainty. The dissemination of resilient thinking in the field of national security will contribute to increasing the effectiveness of the formation and implementation of relevant policies.

In an environment of uncertainty, it is precisely the formulation of the problem requiring the attention of the authorities and the identification of solutions that become problematic, rather than a mere choice between different known problems. Time and information remain traditional constraints in state policy-making, namely, the inability to consider all existing policy alternatives and provide all the implications of decision-making (both favorable and unfavorable).37 It has been determined that uncertainty is eliminated or minimized when we fully trust the institution, person, or data set being questioned.38 This also leads to increased confidence and commitment to established ideas, values, moral beliefs, and social identity.39 Simultaneously, the size of the target audience for policy interventions can significantly complicate the implementation of state policy (the wider it is, the more behavioral changes are expected), as well as various complex nonlinear processes and the influence of other policies.40

Generally, the impact of the nature of the problem on the processes of shaping and implementing state policy is complex. In particular, the nature of the problem can lead to different types of influences on the implementation of measures to regulate it, and a wide range of problems can exacerbate or neutralize these influences.41 In addition, when policy problems are not clearly defined and characterized, it remains unclear what scientific information is relevant to their solution.42 Consequently, uncertainties multiply.

The experts also note a certain positive from unforeseen circumstances. First, uncertainty can be beneficial to the political process when it leads to increased deliberation and willingness to compromise.43 Second, uncertainty helps to mitigate the constraints within which state policy-making takes place.44 This adds flexibility to the process and is therefore consistent with the goals of national resilience as it promotes continuity of governance. Viewed from the perspective of state policy shaping through the prism of state management, adaptive governance can enhance the general resilience of the system by increasing its flexibility, inclusiveness, diversity, and innovation.45 In addition, adaptive governance combines an understanding of problems, concepts of problem-solving, and the processes and methods by which it is implemented.46

The challenge of prioritizing state policy in the area of national security and resilience is becoming increasingly acute in the face of uncertainty. The choice of policy agenda-setting issues is often accompanied by conflicting goals and values, and a time-varying context.47 The need to ensure the flexibility and adaptability of national security policy exacerbates the search for a balance between various national values and interests. In particular, different states decide differently whether or not to restrict the rights and freedoms of citizens in favor of strengthening the national system to counter certain threats (for example, terrorism).48 In addition, the traditional resource constraint on state policy-making in the field of national security may have new features in the modern environment: the redistribution of resources to current challenges may restrain the development of capabilities, essential for strengthening national resilience in the long term.

The above examples suggest a gradual reconceptualization of national security under the influence of the concepts of uncertainty and resilience. This is the result of evolutionary change taking place in the global security environment and the complication of social relations. From a historical perspective, an important stage in the reconceptualization of security was the emergence of the concept of human security.49 This changed the priorities in ensuring national security from the security of territories to the security of people. The new approach to ensuring national security contributed to a paradigm shift in policy-making in the field of national security.

The development of the national resilience concept continues these changes. In particular, a certain decentralization of national security authority and an increased role for civil society and business in ensuring national resilience50 are also changing approaches to state policy shaping. States cannot always impose their will on society.51 Even state-centrism does not exclude the need to take into account the influence of society on the formation of state policy.52 The extension of the resilience concept to national security makes this important. In turn, the unity of the state and society not only strengthens national resilience53 but also enhances the effectiveness of state policies formulation and implementation.54 It should be taken into account that the spread of new knowledge about resilience or the discourse by international organizations or partner states may also cause certain changes in national security policy.55

2. The phenomenon of uncertainty in the context of national security policy-making

Based on the above considerations, the following questions should be answered: what is social uncertainty? What is its nature? How does the uncertainty concerning the fundamental issues of social development affect (or can influence) the socio-political activities related to the national security and defense capability of the modern state?

As noted above, uncertainty is often the result of a lack of information needed to make decisions or a lack of confidence in the information and its sources. The sense of uncertainty often arises from a failure to adequately predict future outcomes.56 Understanding uncertainty requires understanding the social factors that help to produce it.57 It is also important to consider a context when examining the impact of uncertainty on political discourse.58 In addition to defining the context, uncertainty is determined by particular social conditions, and broad cultural processes should be taken into account.59 Generally, uncertainty and threats interact to produce distinct outcomes. Uncertainty can affect threats relatively more negatively or positively, depending on the context.60

From a historical perspective, the uncertainty of social relations in their broad sense has been an integral part of anthropogenesis since the formation of the first (primitive) forms of personal and collective consciousness, which had previously had an activity origin. Social evolution has objectively led to an incredible complexity of the algorithms of human activity aimed at transforming the social or natural environment, the knowledge about which has been and remains largely superficial. As a result, a certain (conscious, thoughtful, planned) activity received an increasing complement in the form of an impulsive chaotic component (illogical, irrational in nature), which generates concerns (fear) of the probability of the occurrence of uncertain, unexpected problems hypothetically threatening the existence of a person or human community.

This has been the case throughout history. However, the composition of uncertainties (domestic and international political) faced by mankind at the beginning of the 21st century is perceived as unique, previously unknown, and particularly threatening. That is why modern scientists are trying to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of social situations, the signs of which are incomprehensible or poorly understood, and the consequences are likely to become particularly destructive. They offer new conceptual approaches to the regulation of social relations under uncertainty. One of them is the concept of “VUCA-world”, where V stands for volatility, U for uncertainty, C for complexity, A for ambiguity.61 Let us decrypt VUCA-world parameters.

Volatility (changeability, instability, unpredictability) means the situation changes quickly and chaotically; based on the available data, it is not possible to predict the next situation or plan further actions.

Uncertainty (ambivalence, confusion) is lack of predictability, consistency, and understanding of cause-and-effect relationships between causes, problems, and events formally dispersed in space and time; future becomes unpredictable from time to time due to the inability or limited use of previous experiences; the likelihood of damaging changes in the social environment is increasing.

Complexity (sophistication) means there is an avalanche-like accumulation of contradictory facts, assessments, and proposals; the consequences of mixing diverse spiritual formations (positions, assessments, proposals) become chaos, confusion, and disorder in social relationships, that challenge well-ordered structures and significantly complicate management.

Ambiguity (multiple meanings) means the probability of subjective interpretation of the situation and incorrect perception of the problem, resulting in superficiality in relation to it; different authors arbitrarily mix verbal formulas describing the problem; as a consequence, the time-space (spatio-temporal) fragment of social evolution is not subject to linear monitoring based on unambiguous judgments.

Despite the importance of each of the named elements, the main component of the VUCA-world is considered to be uncertainty, which is interpreted as ambiguous, incomplete, unclear, and unpredictable development of the situation, the management of which by the stakeholder (subject concerned) is only possible on a partial or no basis. As a component of the absolute majority of social systems and processes, uncertainty reflects the limitations of a person’s conscious participation in super-personal processes and exists independently of the current understanding of their nature, essence, and effects of manifestation.

At the same time, uncertainty should be distinguished from fallibility and indeterminacy. It has been pointed out that uncertainty arises from ignoring fallibility and “winking” at indeterminacy.62 A vivid example of policy-making based on fallibility is Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. It was launched on a range of assumptions that proved to be ill-judged and over-optimistic.63 Ignoring the possibility of such mistakes created uncertainty, which led to an underestimation of the resistance and resilience of the Ukrainian state and society by Western policy-makers and experts on the eve of Russia’s invasion.

Scientists often recognize the formation of relevant policies regarding adaptation to climate change64 or countering COVID-1965 as examples of scientific uncertainty based on nondeterminism affecting policy-making. This is explained by the fact that in both cases, scientific information about the relevant processes and their impact on society was imperfect and incomplete. It also caused numerous discussions and even some doubts.

In our view, the category of uncertainty, as an important parameter in understanding the irrational source of social evolution, can be successfully applied to the analysis of the national security policy of a modern state. Let us consider the options of approximating social uncertainty to the basic features (characteristics) of national security, which is confirmed in the political experience of different countries, both state and social ones.

Uncertainty 1. In an organizational sense, this phenomenon of uncertainty breaks established patterns of national security understanding. Since the public articulation of its basic concept and key characteristics in the early 20th century, the latter was traditionally perceived as a state of protection of the individual, society, and the state’s vital interests, in which their progressive development and minimization of counter-directional risks were ensured.66 For the convenience of state governance, the “vital interests” were variously presented as “national interests” fueled by “national values”. Both national interests and national values were legally regulated and fixed in the form of a corresponding strategy (doctrine). The situation of understanding the “nation” as the bottom-up moment of formulation of national interests and values and call for their comprehensive provision by the state and society looked indisputable.

On that basis, we can describe the situation of many modern societies: what point of social evolution testifies to the formation of a nation and the maturity of the moment when it reveals its interests and values? The quantitative increase and acceleration of global human flows, multiplied by the constant improvement of communicative technologies, calls into question the completeness and adequacy of nations as well-established units of social analysis characteristic of previous eras. Political, ethnic, and cultural theories of the nation’s origin in modern conditions are only “partially fair”, not reflecting the full social dynamics. Quite often, the formal residence of an individual in a given country does not indicate that he or she belongs fully to a local nation. As a consequence, the individual does not perceive (or reject) the interests and values of the existing social environment, which (from the point of view of the formal leaders of the host state) are defined as national. The fundamental foundations of national security are being eroded, which the individual in question is far from being prepared to protect.

Proof of this erosion is the substantial simplification of national interests voiced by ruling elites. For example, for internal and external use, more vague verbal aggregations – “fundamental national interests”, “vital national interests”, “priorities of national interests”, etc. – are increasingly being proposed instead of well-defined national interests. Expansion of national interests’ formulations on the basis of their verbal complexity (actually simplification) destroys the well-established algorithm of state activity in matters of national security. In other words, individuals (social groups) who do not feel that they belong to the nation’s space and national security are present in the territory of a particular established nation that has proven its resilience in previous historical tests. In quantitative terms, such groups are constantly growing on the basis of their own sociocultural, linguistic, religious, and other features. The phenomenon of the diaspora, in its previous interpretations, does not adequately describe the existing parameters of the functioning of the newly formed ethnic communities, which are interested, first and foremost, in the socio-supportive possibilities of the new homeland.67 This conclusion applies both to highly developed states under constant migratory pressure and “average” countries, which are becoming transit bridges for millions of people. At the output, there is national security “not for all” in the socio-political realities of conditional country N. There are numerous projects of the individual (family, kindred, clan) security of migrants, which do not coincide with or even target the state’s ones.

Uncertainty 2 can be seen in the refusal of ruling elites to regulate national security by “fields”. Not so long ago, established ones – political (internal and external), military, economic, social, informational, technological, spiritual and cultural, environmental, and humanitarian – were the spaces for applying the executive mechanisms of a national security system. The state border security, civil protection, etc. were stand-alone spheres. The latest additions to the list of areas of national security were cyber security and migration security, the importance of which in the conflict relations of states was constantly increasing. Some social niches (the same fields) remained, which did not fall into a certain list, despite attempts to write down their maximum number on the pages of a certain national document. These could be, inter alia, religious, maritime, ethno-national, food security, etc.

Under the pressure of the externally globalized and internally sophisticated human world risks, the “field” differentiation of the national security social environment gave way to its anthropic identification: in modern conditions, any fragment of the physical, cybernetic or spiritual space with the presence of human activity (both individual and group) can be a source of diverse threats and, consequently, a target of state efforts to overcome them and normalize the situation. Accordingly, the need for a highly professional interpretation and management of dangerous situations in areas defined by legislation remains, although it is giving way to a comprehensive vision of disruptive impacts, which can be formalized over a wide range and blow up a security structure built on the basis of public-state interaction.

The third crucial point of the impact of social uncertainty on national security is the discrepancy in reading the nature of the impulses directed against it. In order to specify such influences, the terms “challenges”, “threats”, and “hazards”68 are widely used in some countries (including post-Soviet ones). It is believed that their main difference is the intensity of the destructive impact on national security: the challenge can lead to its deformation, the threat to its destruction, and the hazard to its complete elimination or annihilation without the possibility of subsequent recovery. However, national legal systems do not provide a comprehensive and substantive explanation of these terms. In the security realities of many countries, these terms are being arbitrarily confused. In particular, the degradation of the security environment is described by various authors through arbitrarily constructed paired statements: challenge – hazard, threat – challenge, threat – hazard... The term “risk” has recently been used more widely as the only meaningful equivalent of challenges, threats, and hazards. On the one hand, it helps to define the security situation more adequately, on the other – it expands the boundaries of subjectively constructed security diagnostics: there are novelties like “challenge – risk”, “threat – risk”, and “hazard – risk”. Similar terms further obfuscate the understanding of national security and reinforce the uncertain component of its evolution. Such verbal indiscipline facilitates subjective understanding and implementation of national security policy.

The fourth manifestation of social uncertainty regarding the instrumental provision of national security is the excessive subjectivity of the process of determining the structure, functional purpose, and resource support for the security and defense sector as the main instrument for ensuring national security in the social segments, where the physical (armed or warlike) activity of the person still remains dominant.

Most succinctly national security and defense sector is described as “all security forces” created by the democratic state and focused on national interests. First and foremost it is about the Armed Forces (Army), Police, National Guard, Security Services, Border Guards, Emergency Services, Intelligence Agencies and their authorities, and some other special government agencies. Some countries add to the list state bodies whose prerogatives include national security, structures of the military-industrial complex, as well as public associations dealing with security and defense. As a result, there is a fairly extensive format of state and public entities aimed at ensuring national security (safety of the nation). At the same time, the ruling political powers unilaterally determine the “safety margin” of the national security and defense sector, which depends on the number of armed formations (services) assigned to it and the qualitative parameters of their training and preparedness. The requirements for the harmonization of the national security and defense sector in politically integrated countries (for example, within NATO) are rather approximate. Each member-country of the Alliance is able to demonstrate conditional “organizational creativity in the security sector” with the aim of creating consensual and consistent power bases for defending national and coalition interests. As a result, there is a situation of increased complexity in the process of establishing cooperation among the security and defense sectors of various states, since the formal similarity of security structures is blurred by the specificity of national security and defense thinking and by national preconceptions of the necessity or irrelevance of attributing a body to the national security system.

The situation is becoming even more complicated, given the strong sympathy of autocratic systems for the military organization of the state – analogous to the national security and defense sectors in rigidly centralized countries. Stemming from Russian leadership, the ideology of the state military organization domination in political relations within the country and beyond is supported by states that sympathize with the Russian regime (although their number is gradually decreasing). The fundamental difference between the national security and defense sectors and the military organizations of states is the existence (or absence) of comprehensive democratic overseeing and control over security structures and the exclusion of a dictator’s sole use of the state’s power resources at will. In democratic countries, such control is an effective fact, a sign of the nation’s security and defense culture. In contrast, in autocratic states, it is either formal or absent. There is an additional social uncertainty: how is it possible to establish interaction (moreover cooperation) among the national security and defense sectors and the military organizations of the states that were and remain civilizational antipodes by their nature? This happened at least once (in the exceptional military and political conditions of the Second World War during the formation of the anti-Hitler coalition of states). The next 80 years of world history, centered on the Cold War between the geostrategic West and the East, have proved that it is extremely difficult to reproduce such a format of inter-state relations. In modern conditions, social uncertainty as a factor influencing security and defense policy is exacerbated to the point where British–Russian or American–Chinese cooperation in strengthening international security seems impossible. The distance from the peaceful coexistence of these states to their armed confrontation is not insurmountable. This allows generalizing: social uncertainty in the area of national security and defense contains the probability of military-conflict interaction between the parties (states and societies with oppositely oriented national interests).

The fifth aspect of social uncertainty in the context of nongovernmental support for national security and defense policy is the impossibility of the state–civil cooperation optimum’s early determination in peacetime and wartime. Social experience has repeatedly proven the ability of the interested community to influence the political power decisively – to adjust the governmental policy, change the political regime, and achieve desired personal changes in the ruling elite. However, the state–civil duumvirate appears particularly salient during military conflicts (wars), on the results of which social survival depends. In this case, two scenarios are possible.

In case of an appeal by legitimate authorities to the need for armed protection of national interests and values (the list includes the national state), pro-state polarization of patriotic civil society structures is taking place, with the aim of providing comprehensive assistance to the authorities. Society is a resource for a nation’s resilience. In particular, the self-defense forces, volunteer battalions, elements and units of territorial defense that protect the state together with the armed forces and other structures of the security and defense sector are rapidly emerging. Other important manifestations of security (defense) activity of the community should include volunteer movements, the importance of which was and remains quite significant. Thus, the potential for national resilience that is contained in the ability of society to organize itself is revealed.69

In the event of the elimination (destruction) of the state by the enemy, the community offers its own options for social survival, including the nomination of new political leaders and the establishment of alternative armed struggle formats. As an option: a state may temporarily cease to exist in the event of a critically destructive armed impact. The nonexistence of society is possible only in the case of total genocide directed against it. Even a fragment of society exhibits enviable survivability and focuses first on restoring the fullness of its own existence, and then on restoring statehood, which testifies in favor of national resilience. This proves that a mature civil society, which has a deep understanding of national values and interests, has historically become the main client of the state-building project. The revival of the nation is taking place, including the implementation of the state–civil subproject “national security”.

However, it is impossible to determine in advance the way, pace, and algorithm of civil influence on the state in the context of their joint upholding of defense and security characteristics of society. The impromptu armed act of force by civil society in these cases has been historically proven but it is not subject to advanced planning. There is an additional kind of social uncertainty, objectification of which is possible only in specific historical conditions.

Let’s outline another (the sixth) type of social uncertainty regarding national security, the importance of which is now felt with particular acuteness. It is about the degree of security powers delegation by the sovereign state to international structures, with the word “security” in their names. The large-scale aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022, demonstrated the striking weakness of most international security organizations, which proved unable to make the Russian invasion of Ukraine impossible or effectively minimize its course. First of all, it is about the UN Security Council and the OSCE, whose international regulatory potential got stuck in the last century.70 As for the aggressor state, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which had been established by the Russian leadership beforehand, did little to help it. The only exception for today is that NATO mechanisms have worked, blocking the transfer of hostilities to the territory of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and launching the process of its ninth expansion by Finland and Sweden joining the Alliance. So, there is an urgent need for radical reform of European and world security structures. There is an increased need for new international security bodies if such reform is not possible. Logical questions arise: What bodies? On what fundamental principles? With what powers? For what period? Based on what resources? These questions remain unanswered, adding to the confusion of particular societies concerned about the uncertain security of individual regions and the planet as a whole.

These directions of influence of social uncertainty on the security aspects of society’s evolution contribute to the determination of areas for making adjustments to the national security policy.

3. How to reduce the impact of uncertainty in policy-making in the field of national security?

The described above changes in the current global security environment and the nature of social relations make it necessary to introduce changes in the area of national security policy-making in order to increase the effectiveness of its response to new risks (challenges and threats) and manage uncertainty. Additional questions arise: would it be sufficient to make only certain adjustments to such policy based on an analysis of the experience gained and lessons learned? Or are the changes taking place in the world on such a large scale that they require a paradigm shift in national security policy?

As it was identified above, the main factors that weaken the existing national security system and reduce the effectiveness of state policies in this area are the volatility and instability of the global security environment; the unpredictability of its changes; the uncertainty of the social relations nature; proliferation of nonlinear links among causes, problems, and events; enhancement of the role of nonstate actors in ensuring national security and defense capability; the complexity of the modern threats’ nature; the subjectivity of the security situation interpretation and the policy agenda problems perception, etc. This raises questions about the possibility of managing uncertainty to reduce its impact on the formation and implementation of national security policy.

Scientists have identified three main ways to manage uncertainty: 1) quantifying uncertainty; 2) locating uncertainty; 3) scheduling reductions in uncertainty.71 In general, the more we learn about uncertainties, the better we can manage them. This will contribute to reducing the level of uncertainty in the field of public relations, both at the national and international levels.

At the same time, scientific uncertainty is not just an objective quantity that can be reduced by science alone. The impact of science on policy-making remains limited. This is because many aspects of shaping policy lie in the area of culture (values, cultural attitudes, etc.) and cannot be overcome only through the application of new knowledge.72 Distrust in society increases the gap between science and policy-making.

Scientists have identified several ways to reduce the impact of uncertainty on policy formation and implementation in modern conditions. In particular, it is proposed to control information to increase its credibility, as well as to prevent manipulation.73 Other possible solutions may include: 1) a clear definition of the problem, context, and goals at the beginning of the decision-making process; 2) a larger and more active research community; 3) improvement of procedures for involving scientific institutions in political debates.74

The gradual reconceptualization of national security contributed to a paradigm shift in state policy in this area. In general, the paradigm shift in national policy begins with the emergence of a new approach to the interpretation and resolution of problems requiring the attention of the authorities.75 Historical experience has proved that the formation of a new paradigm of state policy is taking place experimentally. Initially, experts and policy-makers discuss its basic ideas and basic beliefs but often disagree. The search for consensus begins at a stage when such a discussion reaches the level of broad public debate.

Currently, there are expert discussions regarding the goals, mechanisms, and directions of the state and society’s resilience in the field of national security and defense capability provision in modern conditions. The verification of the relevant ideas and hypotheses in practice takes place, in particular, in the context of the ongoing full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and other conflicts that are spreading around the world. According to scientists, external influences, social, economic, and political crises, changes in socioeconomic conditions and ruling coalitions, and the development of technology – all of them also call for a paradigm shift in state policy.76 which is not always logical. It often reflects limitations inherent in state policy research and trade-offs to solve them.77

It is possible to draw the following conclusions about the expediency of making fundamental changes in the ideology of the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of national security, based on the conceptual framework for ensuring national resilience and the concept of uncertainty:

– Sudden and unpredictable changes in the security environment require greater flexibility in the design and implementation of state policies; stereotyped patterns of thinking built on past experience limit this flexibility.

– The need to respond to uncertainty calls for clarification of the meaning and significance of the nation as an object of protection, a review of the national interests hierarchy, a new balance between various national values and the needs of national security and resilience, and, if necessary, amendments to the social contract. This will contribute to the clarification of problems that require attention from the government and the specification of policy goals.

– It is expedient to introduce more flexible but understandable approaches to the definition of directions (fields) of ensuring national security, taking into account the peculiarities of risk transformation in modern conditions.

– The search for the optimal composition of the security and defense sector at the national level and ways to optimize state-civil cooperation in peacetime and wartime continues.

– There is an urgent need to review the powers delegated by national governments to international security organizations, as well as to find effective mechanisms for crisis management at the international level.

– The formation and implementation of the national security policy should be carried out on the basis of adaptive management, which implies, inter alia, constant monitoring of the situation, the identification of new trends, risks, and threats, regular analysis of compliance of state policy goals and objectives with changes in the security environment, etc.

– Considering the spread of nonlinear relations in the social system, conceptual approaches to the assessment of the national security policy effectiveness and development of tools for assessment of its compliance with principles of resilience require updating.

– It is expedient to invest in the development of science in the field of national security. In particular, security forecasts should acquire a new quality, especially the development of new ways (methods) of forecasting changes in the field of international relations and their impact on specific states to reduce the potential for uncertainty in their economic, political, environmental, cultural, and other advancements. In addition, the current level of information and communication of human development allows us to bring the issue of increasing the reliability of global security forecasting not only at the theoretical level but also at the level of creating practical mechanisms for implementing constructive forecasts and minimizing the probability of destructive ones in their regional or global terms. This will contribute to reducing uncertainty and increasing trust in science.

The set of influences described in the article, which are carried out in modern conditions on the policy-making in the field of national security, testifies to the need for shaping a new paradigm of national security policy. This process has already begun and may take a long time until a new set of ideas is supported by the majority of society. The introduction of new institutional and legal mechanisms for ensuring national and international security will mean the institutionalization of a new security policy paradigm.

Conclusions

In the modern world, uncertainty is the main factor influencing the formation and implementation of national security policy. The nature of the problems requiring the state’s attention is becoming more complex. Uncertainties regarding fundamental issues of social development are multiplying. Therefore, it becomes difficult to set the political agenda, prioritize relevant state policies and evaluate their effectiveness. There is a gradual transformation of conceptual approaches to the definition of national security basic features: objects and subjects of protection, fields (directions), risks and threats, principles of interaction at different levels, etc. The organization of key processes and the distribution of responsibilities among different actors in this field need to be redefined.

The search for answers to rapid and unpredictable changes in the global security environment and the complication of public relations led to a reconceptualization of national security. The concepts of uncertainty and resilience influence the development of this process. New approaches to ensuring national security contributed to a change in the paradigm of national and international security policy.

The following facts testify that the paradigm shift has already begun:

1) The accumulation of a critical mass of problems that reduce the effectiveness of the international and national security systems’ response to complex contemporary threats and require urgent solutions;

2) The wide debate on new resilience-based approaches to national security as a response to rapid and unpredictable changes in the global security environment.

The search for new effective formats of social relations that would complement the security potential of humanity with new opportunities is an important component of the formation of a new security policy paradigm in modern conditions. The key objective of these changes should be to reduce the uncertainty potential in the economic, political, environmental, cultural, and other dimensions of nations’ development.

Management of uncertainty allows for reducing its impact on the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of national security. The development of science and the increase in the level of reliability of information used as a basis for political decision-making are of great importance for establishing the appropriate process. Dissemination of knowledge in society about modern risks and threats and the development of a security culture will contribute to increasing the level of public trust in scientific information, and therefore in political decisions in the field of national security, which are formed in conditions of uncertainty.

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